302 SPORT IN BENGA.L. 



snipe, and about noon, when almost despairing of sport for 

 that day, we called a halt for refreshment and consultation. 

 While resting, not in the best of humours, we accosted a 

 woman who chanced to pass us with a load of country vege- 

 tables, who proving more communicative and good-natured 

 than usual, informed us, after learning our present business, 

 that if we went a couple of miles to some lowlands on the 

 right, we should find abundance of birds of many kinds, 

 of which she did not know the names both waders and 

 swimmers, with beaks of all lengths, and of flight of various 

 sorts. An hour later we came to a piece of clear water, and 

 saw upon it, and along its banks, birds of many kinds both 

 small and great cranes, herons, coots, jacanas, storks, black 

 and white ibis, red-shanks, whistling and cattan teal, a great 

 company of feathered bipeds, exactly as our almost unique 

 fair informant had said ; but still we were not happy, for we 

 saw not what we sought. Bordering the clear water on both 

 sides were fields of green rice, with here and there brown 

 patches of grass or reeds growing upon ground soft and wet, 

 the time being the middle of October ; accordingly cheered up 

 by the sight before us we sst to work. 



Directing the men who carried our canteens to keep 

 abreast of us on the higher ground on the right ; N. and I 

 formed line with three attendants with snipe-sticks and bags 

 of reserve ammunition, facing westward, with our left on the 

 edge of the water. We had barely set foot in the soft yield- 

 ing soil of the first field, when up rose a wisp of half-a-dozen 

 snipe, fat and heavy with good feeding, out of which I got 

 a right and left, while N. bagged a third which he flushed 

 on the right immediately afterwards ; and thus advancing 

 slowly and deliberately for an hour, we picked up birds 

 rapidly, losing one now and again among the higher growth 

 of rushes and reeds, but on the whole shooting well, con- 

 sidering the previous long and hot walk. By half-past two 

 o'clock we reached the western extremity of the lakelet, 

 twenty-four couple of snipe suspended on our sticks, IS", much 

 done up by the excessive heat, the sky being clear and there 



